No surprise there, but quite a few times they stated Mercy was fine but continued to nerf her… so it’s not as easy to believe anymore. In the sense they say they aren’t going to change her, that’s in a positive way or a rework. A nerf is always another possibility again. Who made her the meta dominant character she was? Their idea of a rework and subsequently appearing to not read the megathread feedback (before they began hiding their forum profiles so stats were no longer visible to all).
The rework isn’t even completely finished, the ‘on fire’ algorithm hasn’t been adjusted to suit the nerfed variant of the rework.
I’m not saying she’s straight out horrible, but she is boring. Mainly pocketing a good ‘damage’ player isn’t the primary role I want if I was to play Overwatch and choose Mercy, nor is being pretty reliant on my team. Mercy’s good if you want to have a fairly relaxed game where you mainly be a sidekick and try to enhance one or more of your teammates.
Baptiste looks like a more ideal alternative though!
I mean, okay, I barely play Mercy, and take note this is silver, so everyone is trash, but I carried a 5 dps comp with Mercy alone against a normal 222… So at lower levels, she is fine, High tiers, she is not. So they need that middle ground where they slightly buff her so she is more viable in higher tiers.
There’s a reason Jeff said they created Baptiste. To add more variety to the Support role.
If Mercy bores you, there are now six other healers to play that all have unique playstyles.
I personally like playing Mercy in moderation. If I think she’d be good with our comp, I’ll run her but as soon as she’s not working I jump ship and play someone else.
I don’t get why Mercy mains keep saying “she’s boring”. Why are you playing her then? Passive healer like that are going to be boring for most people. There are lots of other choices, you aren’t limited to just Mercy.
There’s actually a choice now beyond Ana and Moira yes. No arguing that, but it shouldn’t have come to a point where a new hero had to be made with, ironically, an idea quite similar to one of the ideas from Mercy’s megathread.
Asking hardcore Mercy mains to play something else is like asking any hardcore mains to switch… they aren’t going to do it. I understand frustration if your favorite character is nonviable, I really do, but at some point you have to be honest and say maybe I need to learn at least a couple other characters that are viable… but they fight it tooth and nail…
Indeed, sadly I think it’s a bug. It’s not mentioned on the patch notes and there were changes being made to knockbacks and such which might’ve inadvertently caused this change to Mercy on PTR.
Until the recent PTR the only choices were Ana, which is a popular choice as she’s in a pretty strong spot (possibly a little too strong), or Moira. Thankfully Baptiste has arrived with what appears to be a nice kit and such, and might even cause a fair number of Mercy players to main Baptiste more instead of Mercy. Who knows what the next few months will bring .
I think part of the problem is they are mainly focusing on her from a balance standpoint. If you look at her pickrates and her winrates, then yeah she seems fine. But a lot of the complaints people have about Mercy aren’t solely about balance. Balance is always there, but there’s also a bit of “engaging to play” or “fun” sprinkled in there.
Plus, there is the fact that back in S2/3, people could play Mercy and still be able to work with that pick even in the higher ranks. Ana was preferred, but if the main healer was a Mercy, the team worked around it. Ever since the rework, however, it’s always been “You play these meta healers and if you play anything else, you’re throwing!” kind of deal. People who mained Ana and either didn’t know how to play Mercy, or just didn’t like playing Mercy, they felt forced to play her. Because every time they tried to pick Ana, their team told them to switch to Mercy because “that’s what’s meta”. And it’s the same way now. People don’t want a Mercy on their team. They want an Ana or a Lucio or a Zen because that’s meta.
And yeah, we now have the alternative with Baptiste because he’s sort of the halfway point between Ana and Mercy, that doesn’t erase the fact that they made Mercy unfun for a lot of her playerbase, and now with Baptiste, people are afraid that they’re just going to leave her in the dust and have Baptiste as her replacement. And that’s ignoring the people that main Mercy for a mix of her kit and her personality. Baptiste has the kit, but not the character.
I can understand that because that isn’t the role I really like either but I feel like… if every hero is going to feel different, then having Mercy being that zippy goddess that whips out damage boost/heals at a whim is okay because some people love that play style.
If I pitched her, I would probably have made her heal a blessing she casts on an ally that heals them over time so that she can swap to her pistol and focus on attacking. That’s just creating another hero that I would like rather than creating a different play style for different players.
This is the point, I think. Make heroes feel different, give them tools that sound OP and watch them create a sense of synergy with other heroes.
Yah, I’m quite aware. I’d be surprised if they ever made any significant changes to Mercy again. I’m sure they’ll continue with their number tweaks to do balance adjustments, but I think her general kit is locked as it is now and will remain like that forever.
I don’t agree with what they have done to Mercy, but I do not expect any changes either.
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